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Karmel's lessons heard

Bridie Smith

ECONOMIST and scholar Peter Karmel, who delivered a landmark national report highlighting inequalities in schools, will be farewelled at a funeral on Monday.

Professor Karmel, a graduate of the University of Melbourne, died in Canberra on Tuesday. He was 86.

He will perhaps most be remembered for his influential 1973 economic report Schools in Australia, which documented social inequalities.

The report put the issue on the national agenda and resulted in a new approach to education funding.

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Commissioned by the newly elected Whitlam government, it resulted in the federal government allocating funding to state government schools for the first time.

Melbourne University education expert Richard Teese said the report provided the first national overview of student outcomes.

"It prompted a major change in thinking," Professor Teese said.

"The report said that if there are poor schools in Melbourne or in northern Adelaide, that's not just a matter for the state government. It's a matter for the national government as well."

Professor Karmel was Flinders University's first vice-chancellor in 1966 and vice-chancellor at Canberra's Australian National University from 1982-87.

"He's a great figure in Australian education research and policy he's left his mark on generations of researchers, scholars and students," Professor Teese said. "He made a profound contribution."

Professor Karmel remained involved in the national education debate until the very end  lodging a five-page submission to the Rudd Government's review of higher education last June.

One of his suggestions  that commonwealth funding of undergraduate courses be tied to students rather than institutions  was included in the recommendations of the nine-month inquiry when the report was presented to the Government last month.

He is survived by his wife, Lena, five daughters, a son and 16 grandchildren. His funeral will take place in Canberra on Monday afternoon.